A Lot of Talk About Reagan Today

Some nowadays call the Reagan Revolution dead. The Forbes piece I linked too has so many holes in it that it’s hardly worth addressing each point, and obviously was not written by anyone who made it passed PoliSci 202. Republicans have acted stupid, whiny, impressionable and lately want to be liked so much that they’re willing to compromise their principles to achieve favor rather than results. In other words, a return to pre-Reagan pale pastels. For shame, and in my opinion we deserve everything we get for wimping out when the nation needed us.

Every Republican Presidential candidate since 1980 who has run as a conservative has won the election. Those like Bob Dole and Bush 41 were viewed as moderate, too willing to compromise, or in the case of Bush 41, betrayed conservative principles by unnecessarily raising taxes. If you play the “moderate” game with a Democrat, they simply respond by playing the “nice vs. mean” game which they will win every time it comes down to simple image.

John McCain is a moderate, even Left on some issues. When you play that game, the bold colors disappear and a blatant socialist like Obama can get away with attacking McCain from the Right on some issues. If McCain loses, it’s not a problem with conservatism, it’s a problem with weak-kneed Republicans who spent the last 8 years acting too much like Democrats, putting the flag through the wash so many times that Reagan’s bold colors have begun to fade.

So today, John Zogby had the gall thirteen days out from an election to infer that an impending Obama victory would be more than just a landslide, rather “if Obama wins like [Zogby indicates] we can be talking not only victory but realignment.”

To me “realignment” is a very strong word. The last two realignments occurred in 1936 and 1984 from my interpretation, when a fundamental shift in voting patterns took place whichwas substantially reinforced through a subsequent election which certified that change in voting patterns for decades.

McCain was up six weeks ago, then an intervening unforeseeable force (the market meltdown) shifted the short-term forces in Obama’s favor. Like 1972, the short-term forces overwhelmed the challenger to produce (in that case) a 520-17 beat down by Nixon over McGovern. Did America really love Tricky Dick, or was the October 26th “October Surprise” peace deal with North Vietnam enough to sway the electorate sharply in one direction? Indeed.

Thusly, I think Zogby just wanted to raise the stakes by being over the top in his analysis, and despite the MSM’s premature obituary Reaganism still lives — nowadays less in the Republican Party lately and more in Conservatives who are more and more brazen in their rejection of pale-pastel politics of the McCain-style Republican.